Saturday, August 16, 2008

Windmill

Today's free quilt pattern is the Windmill. This block is easy to piece and has many triangles which makes for many pattern possibilities. I think my example turned out a little busy, so experiment with the values yourself. I'd love to see variations of this block, so send me images of what you come up with.

I did a little research on the history of the pattern name, Windmill. I used Barbara Brackman's Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns, Electric Quilt 5 and Block Base 2, to come up with 28 patterns all called Windmill or with Windmill as part of their title. Some of the blocks had the same construction, but different shading. Some had the same shading and different construction. Some had the same name and different geometries, and some the same geometry and different names. Check out the free Windmill pattern to compare the blocks, their shadings and their sources.

This has been a very busy two weeks for me. I just got new responsibilities at my job at the MSU Museum and the Museum just finished it's Great Lakes Folk Festival. Not only have I not updated my blog, but I haven't sewn either. I'm still working on making a quilting template for my Ohio Star President's quilt that is set in a streak-of-lightening setting. I've hit a snag. The cutting tool I was planning to use needs sharpening. So I bought a tool that burns wood and said it burned plastic, too. I've been trying it and although it melts the plastic, it doesn't make a large enough groove for a marking pencil to fit. Back to the drawing board!

Capitol City Quilt Guild

About Me

Years of quilting, designing and teaching have made me a great trouble shooter. Feel free to email me questions or problems and I'll do my best to solve them. I made my first quilt in 1974, then took a sewing sabbatical as I went to college. Work, marriage, and motherhood followed. In 1982, my first quilting class (with Pepper Cory) provided an escape from child care duties. I was soon hooked, not only on quilting, but on drafting and designing, too. In 1984 I began teaching quiltmaking. While teaching I wrote a series of Block of the Month patterns. Five years later they became my book Block By Block. In 1997, I published my second book, Charm Quilts and landed a job at the Michigan State University Museum. For the last 10 years I've been doing 1000s of hours of data entry for the Michigan Quilt Project and the Quilt Index. I continue to quilt, design, write and now blog. Welcome.